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Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists: The Common Roots of Psychotherapy and Its Future/Revised Edition of "the Mind Game"
Discusses the role of psychiatrists in society, compares their work with that of healers, medicine men, and priests in other cultures, and considers the future of psychotherapy
316 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 3, 2017
If my mother wasn't a psychiatric nurse, I would probably have been a psychiatric patient: when I was younger, I had autistic and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I think it's a minor victory that I got over my OC tendencies.
I'd probably detest engaging with most people for the rest of my life, however, although my becoming a medical doctor has helped temper this disgust. Even during medical school, I was always attracted by psychiatry: I think the saying 'it takes a madman to know a madman' has pertinence. I may now be competent, but I still think I'm a bit of a madman.
I didn't go through with psychiatry because I know I have little patience with people, and I also have a well-founded fear that I may become like the people I would be trying to treat. Despite this, however, I still wish to understand people - at least, I want to understand the few people I treasure in my life.
One of the most important ideas that this book elucidates upon is the heavy dependence on psychology, or psychotherapy, on culture. For example, in the Philippine hinterlands, would a nomad really go through mountains to approach a Western-trained psychiatrist when he suspects being afflicted with kulam? Or would he go to an albularyo (which is also found in Mexican-American societies)?
He'd probably go to the latter - and probably even feel better from it, and in a subversion, he'd think that the psychiatrist was the witchdoctor.
This is what Torrey describes as the Rumpelstiltskin principle: for psychotherapy to work, there must be a common subculture or world-view shared by the healer, and the patient. Otherwise, the psychotherapy will never do anything.
Three other elements must be present in order for psychotherapy to work. There must be a patient who believes that he will get better, and methods of treatment. But second only to the shared subculture of therapist and patient, however, is the personal qualities that the therapist should possess. These qualities must be conducive to the patient developing a positive outlook in life, and the book mentions three: accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness. I think I aspire to having these qualities in real life, because I want to be helpful to my few friends and family members (although I am really lacking in the warmth department, and that probably won't change).
The book concludes in a vein eerily similar to the message that the Doctor Strange film essays: 'it's not about you.' Witchdoctors, within their culture, are just as effective as psychiatrists in more Western, more civilized places. To ignore or denigrate the ability of these traditional methods of psychotherapy is to be blinded by irrational jingoism: the West is not the center of the world, after all. Once we take off the blinders, we realize that even these traditional methods have use in mental health. In purely somatic disorders, however, manong albularyo should know how and when to refer.
That's our expertise, after all.
I'd probably detest engaging with most people for the rest of my life, however, although my becoming a medical doctor has helped temper this disgust. Even during medical school, I was always attracted by psychiatry: I think the saying 'it takes a madman to know a madman' has pertinence. I may now be competent, but I still think I'm a bit of a madman.
I didn't go through with psychiatry because I know I have little patience with people, and I also have a well-founded fear that I may become like the people I would be trying to treat. Despite this, however, I still wish to understand people - at least, I want to understand the few people I treasure in my life.
One of the most important ideas that this book elucidates upon is the heavy dependence on psychology, or psychotherapy, on culture. For example, in the Philippine hinterlands, would a nomad really go through mountains to approach a Western-trained psychiatrist when he suspects being afflicted with kulam? Or would he go to an albularyo (which is also found in Mexican-American societies)?
He'd probably go to the latter - and probably even feel better from it, and in a subversion, he'd think that the psychiatrist was the witchdoctor.
This is what Torrey describes as the Rumpelstiltskin principle: for psychotherapy to work, there must be a common subculture or world-view shared by the healer, and the patient. Otherwise, the psychotherapy will never do anything.
Three other elements must be present in order for psychotherapy to work. There must be a patient who believes that he will get better, and methods of treatment. But second only to the shared subculture of therapist and patient, however, is the personal qualities that the therapist should possess. These qualities must be conducive to the patient developing a positive outlook in life, and the book mentions three: accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness. I think I aspire to having these qualities in real life, because I want to be helpful to my few friends and family members (although I am really lacking in the warmth department, and that probably won't change).
The book concludes in a vein eerily similar to the message that the Doctor Strange film essays: 'it's not about you.' Witchdoctors, within their culture, are just as effective as psychiatrists in more Western, more civilized places. To ignore or denigrate the ability of these traditional methods of psychotherapy is to be blinded by irrational jingoism: the West is not the center of the world, after all. Once we take off the blinders, we realize that even these traditional methods have use in mental health. In purely somatic disorders, however, manong albularyo should know how and when to refer.
That's our expertise, after all.
October 13, 2007
The guy gets his point across, over and over and over...still, the stories of native healers are captivating and the parallels with psychiatry striking. I can't argue with him.
November 18, 2014
Written during the author's anti-psychiatry years, the tone is dated. Very interesting and original, otherwise
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews